


To Wane And To Wax (Call Me The Moon)

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 16:32:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13485429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: If his first life had been his waning then the second was his waxing, first to wither and then to blossom. Imprisoned at the end of the Fourth Shinobi War, Madara discovers that there are some things which may grow even in the dark.





	To Wane And To Wax (Call Me The Moon)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivegotpurple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivegotpurple/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my dearest darling, captain of the SS MadaKaka!

He spoke the words inside the quiet of his mind, whispering them in the silence of his own tumultuous thoughts each time their eyes met. Madara had never been the type of man to keep quiet about how something made him feel. If others couldn’t handle his personality then generally he was of the opinion that they should simply fuck off and take their pitiful existence somewhere else. He’d never cared before what anyone else thought of him so it was new and strange to now spend a great deal of his time worrying over just that.

For his own sanity, he justified it by going over all the reasons _why_.

Kakashi was a man unlike any other and Madara had been fascinated by him from the moment he finally deigned to speak to the Rokudaime Hokage. Their first few interactions had been tainted by his own anger – story of his life, really, although he thought anyone might be angry after having been taken as a war prisoner and held in the dungeons of the very village that he himself had helped to create. Konohagakure belonged to him more than any of the other insects crawling about the place today. Even the name had been his invention. To be held hostage here now when all he had been trying to do was to create the perfect world was galling.

At first his meetings with the current Hokage had been because he refused to speak with anyone else, deeming them unworthy. Hatake Kakashi, however, he recognized as one of the faces who had orchestrated his own downfall. While that might not have endeared him to the man very much it did encourage a healthy amount of reluctant respect.

Several years had passed as Madara rotted away in his cell. It had taken two of them to convince him to speak with a psychiatrist and when those visits began to outnumber his sessions with Kakashi he’d kicked up a fuss and stopped cooperating until the Rokudaime had come back with an exhausted expression and rolling eyes. He told himself he only wanted to be as annoying as possible, to inconvenience Kakashi in any way he could from his position behind bars, yet that failed to address the way he began to look forward to the days when the silver haired man had an hour or two to spare for the monster locked in the basement.

Over time their conversations were less filled with insults and pointed jabs, more centered around getting to know one another and discussing how everyday life differed between this era and the one Madara had grown up in. Kakashi described random happenings from around the village for him, never anything that might be of use if he escaped and went rogue again but always interesting, and in turn Madara told him anecdotes from the very beginning of Konohagakure. It felt as though one day he had woken up and these words had been in his head, pressing against his forehead and the back of his teeth until he had to clench his jaw to keep them inside for fear of what reaction they might evoke.

Luckily for him Kakashi never seemed to suspect what he was thinking. These days their visits were so frequent it was rare for a day to pass without the pale man wandering down the corridors of the prison and quite often he would stay for several hours. Sometimes he did little but sit on the bench on the opposite wall and read that little orange book he never seemed to part from. Other days they would talk until both of their throats had gone dry. Madara cherished both occasions.

Now he stood so close to the bars of his cell he was nearly pressed up against them, his heart beating a wild tattoo in his chest and familiar words blocking the flow of air in his throat. Footsteps rang in his ears and as he listened to the small procession approaching his small corner of hell he wasn’t sure if he was feeling excited or downright petrified.

Today, for better or for worse, he would be released from prison.

Considering the crimes he had committed against the village, he wasn’t surprised that they had sentenced his chakra to be sealed for life. He’d had years to get used to the idea already and while he would never be happy about it he had learned to live with it. What he had spent the last few years pointedly _not_ considering was the fact that now he was free and Hatake Kakashi might not see any reason to continue their association with one another. Had the man only continued to visit him to keep him sane? Was he simply a safe person to complain to about the stresses of being Hokage? He’d never found the courage to ask what he meant to Kakashi, not when the answer would be so embarrassingly dear to him.

Four people came to a stop outside of the cell in which he had lived the entirety of his second life time. Madara did not recognize the young lad with a bored look on his face and hair up in a spiked ponytail, nor did he recognize the wizened old woman with beads in her gray bun and a disapproving expression. He did recognize Uzumaki Naruto in all his orange and bouncy glory, one of the others who had helped defeat him during that folly of a war.

Right in front of all three of them stood Kakashi and he was the only one on whom Madara rested his eyes, taking in every detail about him in case this was the last they saw of each other, screaming his unheard mantra over and over in the silence of his mind. It was a wonder, as always, that the silence which was so loud inside his head was not audible to others.

“Uchiha Madara,” Kakashi intoned, likely for the benefit of those with him and the guards hiding in the shadows. “You have been deemed safe to be released back in to society. As part of your parole you will be required to talk part in a mandatory rehabilitation program and report to an assigned Keeper a minimum of once a week. Should you disagree with these terms you will not be released. What say you?”

“I agree to your terms.” Again, his words were only for the benefit of the others listening in. Kakashi had kept him updated on the demands the council had been making for weeks now as they considered whether or not to inflict him upon the general public. He had agreed to these terms days ago, just not in front of any witnesses.

“Very well. Should you violate these terms you will be punished as the council sees fit for each transgression. If at any time you injure a fellow villager with malicious intent you will be returned to prison with no parole for the rest of your natural life.”

“Not unexpected. I agree.”

Kakashi nodded and reached out to lay one hand against the seal covering the lock of his cell door. A spark of chakra jumped between his hand and the parchment before suddenly the seal disappeared in a miniscule puff of smoke. Then the door swung open and Madara was a free man.

Naruto bounced around them as he cautiously stepped out of his cage and he was forced to tune out the annoying barrage of comments about second chances and peace and a better world. He could care less for a better world. If the world were anything even slightly close to the way Kakashi described it, a better future had already arrived and that was all that he had dreamed of in his youth. Eventually Naruto was reined in by the other lad with the bored face and Madara was escorted above ground in a much calmer silence.

The sun was hotter than he remembered. Somehow that seemed a strange thing to forget. Madara squinted against the almost too-bright rays of morning sunlight and looked around slowly, watching a child dash across the street in to her mother’s arms, watching an old man shake his stick reprovingly at a pair of rambunctious teenagers, and he couldn’t help the words which bubbled out from between his lips.

“This is home.” It wasn’t until he had spoken that realized how true the statement was. So many years he had spent seeking to destroy this very place yet in all that time he had failed to remember, this was the home he had fought to build. Why had he wanted to tear it back down?

“Hmph.” From behind him he could hear the old woman give a disapproving sniff. She was probably disappointed that he hadn’t flown off the handle and given her an excuse to toss him back in prison. “Let the consequences be on _your_ head.”

“As you say, Koharu-sama,” Kakashi’s voice replied while her heavy footsteps shuffled away.

Naruto bounced enthusiastically in to their faces with a few more phrases about peace and unity before his bored friend dragged him away as well. Then suddenly he was alone with Kakashi in a way that was different from all of the times before.

Strangely, no one seemed to be looking at either of them. Life passed by uninterrupted outside of the building where he had been held and none of the citizens wandering by gave so much as a single glance towards the two still figures standing in the doorway at the edge of a pool of sunlight.  As much as his now deeply buried pride demanded that he be paid the attention he felt he deserved, he was relieved that no one was giving him any now.

He was much more interested in the way Kakashi was stepping away around the side of the tower and indicating with a tilt of his head for Madara to follow.

Walking on grass again instead of concrete was interesting. It had been so long he’d forgotten the springy sensation of it and for the first few steps he tread extra carefully, wary of rolling his ankles on the uneven dirt. Once he realized how silly he was being he hurried to catch up, trailing after the Hokage until they had found an isolated area out of sight of the public. By the small wooden tables he would guess that this was meant as an area for those employed here to take their breaks, though there was thankfully no one present at the moment.

“As I mentioned before, housing has been provided for you and until you have been integrated enough to find work for yourself you will be provided an allowance for food and amenities.” Kakashi brought his hands together, both of them disappearing in to the sleeves of his voluminous white robe. “But before you disappear back in to the real world there is something I promised myself that I would say to you when this time came.”

“Go on then,” Madara replied. Nerves tied his stomach in knots and the words that he’d held at bay for too long now crawled up his throat like confessional goblins. He swallowed thickly to force them back down, ears straining for whatever Kakashi wished to tell him.

He didn’t have long to wait. Clearing his throat, the younger man raised his chin and looked him in the eye almost defiantly.

“I think I’m in love with you. And to be perfectly honest I’m terrified.”

For an extended moment all Madara could do was stand and stare, unable to even draw breath in his shock at hearing his own secret words spilling out of Kakashi’s lips.

“You…love me?” he whispered. Kakashi cleared his throat a second time and nodded, looking away for a moment before meeting his eyes once more.

“I’m not sure how or when. One day in the middle of listening to you speak it suddenly all came together, the reason I couldn’t seem to stop visiting you, the reason I kept doing more and more to make you comfortable and fight for your release.” His mask shifted in a way Madara knew meant he had twisted his mouth in to a wry expression. “You were my prisoner, so I’m very aware that there is little chance that you would return my feelings. However, I did promise myself that I wouldn’t be too coward to tell you, so here we are.”

“Oh.”

Madara drew a full breath finally, lungs burning and body thrumming. Everything inside of him was suddenly blissfully silent. It felt strange but even stranger was to contemplate the idea that Kakashi returned the feelings he hadn’t even had the courage to fully acknowledge to himself.

Between one gulp of air and the next he realized that he was standing there like an idiot, staring without giving any indication of his answer. He could no more help the wild grin that broke out across his face than he could help the way his limbs trembled with excitement as he made his move. If Kakashi could take a chance then so could he. At least the chance he was taking now didn’t seem anywhere near as likely to fail.

When he stepped forward and fell in to Kakashi he was well aware that the younger man’s heightened senses meant he could dodge if he wanted to. It meant the world that he didn’t. Their first kiss was firm and passionate despite the cloth barrier, wasting no time on hesitancy after spending so much time concealing their feelings on both sides of a barred cell door. Madara caught the Hokage by his hips and pulled him close, tilting his head to deepen their kiss as he tried to convey without words how desperately he had dreamed of this, how hopelessly he had yearned. Fingers tangling in to the locks of his hair told him that Kakashi felt the same.

“I love you,” Madara whispered against the other man’s lips. He had never been the type to keep quiet about how he felt and it was a huge relief to speak freely now. “And I, too, was terrified.”

“Maa, how silly of us.”

He smiled at Kakashi’s words, glad he had dropped the air of formality at last. “Come what may, I am glad that I will face it by your side.”

“I like the sound of that,” Kakashi murmured.

Both of them knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. One of them was a war criminal and the other was Rokudaime Hokage of Konohagakure. Many people would disapprove of their relationship and many more would outright oppose it. There would be some who accused him of influencing their leader and there would be others who accused Kakashi of being bewitched or going soft. Many trials would face them both personally and professionally just for sharing this bond of love.

And yet, Madara found that none of it worried him too much. At long last he had found that which eluded him so many years ago. He had found that thing he had searched for, the absence of which had led to him abandoning this place and seeking to build a better world.

He had found a home and, in it, he had found peace.


End file.
